Darth Wiki / How Not to Write a Trope Page

"Obligatory Order of the Stick quote, even if other quotes would fit better."

The Order of the Stick

"Add as many quotes as you'd like."

Some random show

"NO!"

Doctor Ivo Robotnik, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

At TV Tropes, we don't want to stifle your creative talent. Feel free to add pages if you think they are warranted. Why waste all the time getting the page just right? You don't want to deprive anyone of it for longer than you need to, do you? Now remember these rules.

Compare How Not to Write an Example.

• All new examples must go to the top. It'll save more time for the viewers!
• Don't put the examples markup before the examples. Everyone knows they're the examples because of the bullet points.
• Don't bother putting anything through YKTTW, it never helps.
• If it's a work page, you must put it through YKTTW.
• The title must either be a Word Salad Title or be a reference to the obscure show of yours that everybody watches - preferably both.
• Post some arbitrary picture that has nothing to do with the trope in question, and put a description of how the picture is related in the captioning - after all, why use the actual body or the examples section for something like that?
• Create plural redirects to your trope page, everybody loves them!
  • Initialism redirects are excellent as well, and if you can work out a plural initialism to make into a redirect, you can have some ice cream after dinner.
    • On the same note, people love it when you add a sub-example that has nothing to do with the first example.
• Insert Take Thats everywhere you can fit them against things you hate. (Take That!, editors fond of using Take Thats!)
• You shouldn't Spoil out (now that you can't strike) anything on the main page that you're changing - it helps people save time by knowing what was changed without needing to go to the "history" section of the page.
  • Speaking of spoilers, it's perfectly okay to spoil out pronouns! How horrifying it would be to know what her gender is!
• Shoehorn in as much potholes to tropes as you can, regardless of the actual context or if the page even actually exists.
  • Um, it's "many" potholes, not "much" potholes.
• No matter what the trope content or how little they may belong, references must be made to the following: Sonic the Hedgehog, Doctor Who, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, The Nostalgia Critic and/or The Nostalgia Chick, The Order of the Stick, Warhammer 40,000, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Game of Thrones, Haruhi Suzumiya, Discworld, SCP Foundation and maybe Avatar: The Last Airbender. Bonus points if you have to make up events wholesale.
  • More bonus points if you say "Obligatory X Example".
    • More more bonus points if it's an obligatory Doctor Who example.
  • You freaking forgot Ranma ½, Naruto, and Neon Genesis Evangelion! You guys are so lucky I'm around. Oh, and while I'm here, always remember that people will never realize what a huge favour you've done them by fixing the page unless you make sure to remind them by using first person and This Troper all over the place, and making it clear that you've fixed an otherwise horribly wrong page, leaving in as much as it takes to prove that the page was horribly broken before you made your long-awaited "Big Damn Heroes" entrance. TV Tropes is a great place to say A God Am I where nobody can remind you that you're fat, ugly and You Need to Get Laid. Oh, and spamming Pot Holes to everything vaguely relevant to your words, it's a great way to prove your wit. Bonus points for an All-Blue Entry. Oh, and don't forget to go wildly Off Topic and write a massive Author Tract into all of your edits, otherwise you're worse than Hitler - he made one legitimately contributory edit And That's Terrible.
• You Must Always Type Like This And Say Why You Rock And Others Don't.
• IGgNorr gRammAHR anND speHling.

-Ignore proper formatting too!

• It's a great idea to write in first person using Me and my as much as possible
  • Also make sure to tense shift as often as possible! Because everybody wants to know my gender and why him being so is important!
• Justifying edits are the best! Forget Repair, Don't Respond, we wanna feel victorious whenever we correct a troper!
  • What makes you think that? They're completely annoying!
  • Use Justifying Edits even for tropes that have absolutely no negative connotations. It's totally unfair for people to accuse your favorite work of containing Achey Scars, even when there was totally a good reason for that trope to be present.
  • To be fair, this page has a good reason for everything it says.
• Make sure to pothole every threatening moment, no matter how threatening it is, to Oh, Crap!.
  • Oh, Crap! is not about the character's reaction to something. It's about the thing that caused the reaction. Or might have caused it. Or might cause it in the audience.
• Don't waste too much time editing something. Just bring your viewers to another example! They won't mind! See above for more details.
• Remember that every troper just fucking loves swearing, so make sure you insert as much goddamn profanity it takes for them to get the fucking message!
  • Hell yeah!
• The Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment is a lie: 99% of tropers are looking for a fight, so please accommodate them by including as much Flame Bait as possible in every sentence of your description.
• Instead of writing the work's name, just pothole a name to the work's page. Because everyone will know what work you're talking about when they see the name "Twilight Sparkle" or "Gensokyo".
• If you see a work is already listed as an example, but doesn't mention all instances of the trope's occurrence, just add a second-level bullet point below the original example without changing anything else.
  • You should also do this to add extra information to the example above or clarify some details.
  • Or to correct incorrect information.
• If the trope is objective, you should still insert potholes to YMMV tropes. If people see these potholes on a supposedly objective page, it will emphasize how prevalent that subjective opinion is within the fanbase.
• Refer readers to other pages for more information. See How Not to Write an Example for more information.
• Linking to an Article Within the Article is perfectly fine and not redundant at all, especially when editing How Not to Write a Trope Page.

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Obligatory Statler and Waldorf joke

• Feel free to add examples after The Stinger!